Universals Archive
A database of proposed crosslinguistic laws and tendencies in grammar across the world’s languages. 2,029 published entries.
543 entries · page 5 of 11
| # | Standardized / Original | Domain | Type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 877 | In initial clusters, IF there is at least one cluster consisting of nasal + liquid, THEN there is at least one cluster consisting of obstruent + liquid. | phonology | implication | consonant cluster, initial, nasal, liquid, obstruent |
| 878 | In final clusters, IF there is at least one cluster consisting of nasal + nasal, THEN there is at least one cluster consisting of nasal + obstruent. | phonology | implication | consonant cluster, initial, nasal, obstruent |
| 879 | In initial clusters, IF there is at least one cluster consisting of obstruent + nasal, THEN there is at least one cluster consisting of obstruent + liquid. | phonology | implication | consonant cluster, initial, nasal, obstruent, liquid |
| 880 | IF there are final consonant clusters, THEN there will be at least one cluster with a final obstruent in the dental-alveolar region. | phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | consonant cluster, final, dental, alveolar, obstruent |
| 881 | IF there are initial consonant clusters, THEN there is at least one cluster with an initial consonant in the dental-alveolar region. | phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | consonant cluster, initial, dental, alveolar |
| 882 | IF there are affricates, THEN there is at least one in the dental-alveolar of alveo-palatal region. | phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | consonant cluster, initial, dental, alveolar, alveo-palatal |
| 883 | IF there is a high back unrounded vowel, THEN there will be a [corresponding?] high front unrounded vowel. | phonology | implication | high, back, front, vowel, unrounded |
| 884 | IF there is a lower high back rounded vowel, THEN there will be a high or lower high front vowel. | phonology | implication | high, lower high, back, front, vowel, rounded |
| 885 | IF maximal back vowel height is X, THEN maximal front vowel height will be at least as high. | phonology | implication | vowel, back, front, high |
| 886 | All languages have a high or a lower high front vowel. | phonology | unconditional | high, low, front, vowel |
| 887 | IF there is a front rounded vowel, THEN there will be a front unrounded vowel at the same tongue height. | phonology | implication | rounded, unrounded, front, vowel, height |
| 888 | IF there is a rounded front vowel, THEN there is a rounded back vowel. | phonology | implication | rounded, front, back, vowel, height |
| 889 | IF there is a back unrounded vowel, THEN there is a front unrounded vowel of corresponding tongue height. | phonology | implication | unrounded, front, back, vowel, height |
| 890 | IF morphology is agglutinative, THEN accent is primarily pitch. IF morphology is flexive, THEN the accent is primarily stress. |
prosodic phonology, morphology | implication | agglutination, flexion, accent, pitch, stress |
| 891 | IF basic order is OV, THEN there is mora-counting. IF basic order is VO, THEN there is syllable-counting. |
phonology, syntax | implication | order, VO, OV, rhythm, mora-counting, syllable-counting |
| 893 | See Graphics for Iambic vs. Troachaic phrase accent and its many correlates | prosodic phonology, morphology, syntax | mutual implication | phrase accent, word canon, timing, mora, syllable, consonantism, vocalism, tone, verse, music, order, object, verb, adverb, auxiliary, adjective, noun, attributive, postposition, clitic, enclitic proclitic, affix-order, suffix, prefix, synthesis, analysis, agglutination, polysynthesis, flexion, isolation |
| 894 | see Graphics for Iambic vs. Trochaic languages | prosodic phonology, morphology, syntax | mutual implication | stress, syllable, unit, order, object, verb, subject, adverb, adjective, noun, attributive, agglutination, flexion, timing, stress, syllable, syllable structure, intonation contour, tone |
| 895 | See Graphics for Moderate rhythmic holism | inflection, prosodic phonology | mutual implication | syllable structure, stress, vowel harmony, vowel system |
| 905 | IF tone is omnisyllabic, THEN morphemes are monosyllabic. | phonology | implication | tone, morpheme, syllable |
| 906 | IF tone is omnisyllabic, THEN there will be a repertoire of purely emotional/affective particles. | phonology, lexicon | implication | tone, particle |
| 919 | The more numerous the contrastive segments, the shorter the average length of a word. | phonology, morphology | mutual implication | word length, phoneme inventory |
| 921 | IF there is the voiceless labial fricative phoneme /f/, THEN there will be the voiced labial fricative phoneme /w-v/. | phonology | implication | labial, fricative |
| 922 | IF there is the voiced velar fricative phoneme /©/, THEN there will be the voiceless velar fricative phoneme /x/. | phonology | implication | velar, fricative, voice |
| 923 | IF the voiceless stop /p/ is absent from the labial group, THEN the corresponding voiceless fricative /f/ must be present. IF the marked combination of features [-syllabic, +nonsyllabic, -voiced, stop, labial] has a frequency of zero in a system, THEN the marked combination of features [-syllabic, +nonsyllabic, +voiced, fricative, labial] has a frequency above zero. |
phonology | implication | velar, fricative |
| 924 | IF the voiced stop /g/ is absent from the velar group, THEN the corresponding voiced fricative /©/ must be present. IF the marked combination of features [-syllabic, +nonsyllabic, +voiced, stop, velar] has a frequency of zero in a system, THEN the marked combination of features [-syllabic, +nonsyllabic, +voiced, fricative, velar] has a frequency above zero. |
phonology | implication | velar, fricative, voice |
| 925 | IF a syllabic consonant occurs in the phonological context X in root morphemes, THEN it occurs also in other morphemes, given that they contain the context X. | phonology, morphology | implication | consonant, syllabic, root, morpheme |
| 926 | IF syllabic consonants are created by syncope in stressed syllables, THEN they have been created by stress in unsyncopated syllables. | phonology | implication | consonant, syllabic, syncope, stress |
| 927 | IF stressed syllabic consonants become non-syllabic or are lost, THEN nonstressed syllabic consonants have become nonsyllabic or have been lost. | prosodic phonology | implication | consonant, syllabic, stress |
| 928 | If a language contains syllables with vowel nuclei of the form CmVCn and syllables with consonantal nuclei of the form Cm'C§Cn', then m’ ≤ m, and n’ ≤ n. | phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | syllable, nucleus, vowel, syllabic, consonant |
| 929 | The source of syllabicity in syllabic consonants is always a vowel, either directly, when a vowel changes into a consonant (consonantalization), or else indirectly, when a vowel is lost and its syllabicity is transferred to a consonant (syllabic syncope). | phonology | unconditional | syllable, vowel, syllabic, consonant, syncope |
| 930 | A consonant may become syllabic only if it is an adjacent margin of a syncopated vowel. | phonology | implication | syllable, vowel, syllabic, consonant, syncope |
| 931 | If in a given context nasal-vowel (NV) sequences occur, and /u/ represents the highest back rounded vowel appearing in these sequences, then: A. NV > N§ ⇒ mu > N§ or ˜u > N§, and B. NVlow > N§ ⇒ NVnonlow > N§ , and similarly for contexts containing vowel-nasal sequences. |
phonology | implication | nasal, vowel, high, back, syllabic, consonant |
| 932 | IF there are syllabic stops or affricates, THEN there are syllabic fricatives. | phonology | implication | stop, affricate, fricative, syllabic, consonant |
| 933 | IF there are syllabic obstruents, THEN there will be syllabic s§ or s§‡ (given that there is nonsyllabic s or s‡). | phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | obstruent, /s/, syllabic, consonant |
| 934 | IF there is syllabic laryngeal h§§, THEN there are syllabic fricatives. | phonology | implication | laryngeal, fricative, syllabic, consonant |
| 935 | IF there are voiceless syllabic stops, THEN there are voiced syllabic stops. | phonology | implication | voice, stop, syllabic, consonant |
| 936 | If there is the syllabic laryngeal ֤ then there are syllabic obstruent stops. | phonology | implication | laryngeal, obstruent, syllabic, consonant |
| 937 | IF a vowel undergoes consonantalization, THEN it must be a high one. | phonology | implication | vowel, consonantalization, syllabic, consonant |
| 938 | IF there is extensive neutralization among the primary nasal consonants in other than prejunctural and/or preconsonantal positions, THEN there will be such neutralizations in prejunctural and/or preconsonantal positions as well. | phonology | implication | consonant, nasal, neutralization |
| 939 | Secondary nasal consonants are, apart from borrowing and analogical formations, always the result of diachronic developments from clusters. | phonology | target < source | consonant, nasal |
| 940 | IF there are nasal vowels, THEN there is at least one primary nasal consonant. | phonology | implication | consonant, nasal, vowel |
| 941 | Low vowels tend to be longer than high vowels, all things being equal. | phonology | unconditional | vowel, low, high, length |
| 942 | When there is extensive neutralization of nasal vowels with oral vowels, this occurs next to nasal consonants. | phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | consonant, nasal, vowel, oral, neutralization |
| 943 | Nasal vowels, apart from borrowing and analogical formations, always result from the loss of a Primary Nasal Consonant. | phonology | target < source | consonant, nasal, vowel |
| 944 | A nasal syllabic phoneme, apart from borrowings and analogical formations, always results from the loss of a vowel. | phonology | target < source | nasal syllabic, vowel |
| 945 | Nasalized vowels always arise from a sequence of vowel and nasal consonant origin. | phonology | target < source | nasalized, vowel, nasal, consonant |
| 946 | IF there is a merger of oral vowels, THEN there is a merger of the corresponding nasal vowels if they exist. | phonology | implication | oral, vowel, nasal, consonant |
| 947 | When nasal and oral vowels merge unconditionally, the result is always an oral vowel. | phonology | unconditional | oral, vowel, nasal |
| 948 | When there is i and ü, i may originate from ü but not ü from i. | phonology | target < source | high, front, vowel |
| 949 | The more a language is fusional, the more phonological rules are needed to serve morphological fusion. | phonology, morphology | implication | fusion |